As the Republican cult readies its blueprint for destroying democracy in 2024 – indeed, a prominent conservative judge writes today that “the last presidential election was a dry run for the next” – the mainstream media must confront reality. The old days of “both sides” false-balance journalism, the old days of writing “on the one hand, on the other hand,” the old days when both parties honored democracy by accepting election results – are over and done. When one party/cult openly signals that it no longer believes in democracy, when indeed it is working non-stop to wreck it, journalists can no longer take refuge in “neutrality.”
In a national civic emergency, the mainstream media needs to be pro-democracy and pro-truth. That is not “bias.” That is patriotism.
I’m bestirred to state the obvious after reading an interview with Joe Kahn, the incoming executive editor of The New York Times. I’ll stipulate that he is far more credentialed than I. But that doesn’t give him a pass. Faced with the most existential issue of our time, he just doesn’t get it:
“(T)he idea that the only thing the New York Times should cover – at the expense of the politics that are motivating voters around the country – is the threat to undermine the democratic system, and that therefore everything on – if you’re a Democrat – the other side of the fence, the Republican side of the fence, is nothing but a threat to democracy, is the formula to not having any more independent journalism in the United States. I honestly think that if we become a partisan organization exclusively focused on threats to democracy, and we give up our coverage of the issues, the social, political, and cultural divides that are animating participation in politics in America, we will lose the battle to be independent.“
For starters, nobody is suggesting that The Times and other mainstream outlets should focus “exclusively” on burgeoning authoritarianism to the exclusion of everything else. What’s most disturbing, however, is his apparent belief that prioritizing coverage of “threats to democracy” is somehow a “partisan” pursuit. Let’s not mince words here: If Republicans succeed in doing what they’re clearly plotting to do, we will lose our democracy, and if we lose our democracy, The Times will lose its “battle to be independent.”
Kahn apparently doesn’t understand that the “animating” Republican issues – mostly clustered around its fear-driven culture war – are mere facets of the cult’s authoritarian master plan. They’re all designed to whip up populist fervor in the service of seizing and holding power. But Kahn seems to think that we should draw an artificial distinction between the Republican issues and the Republican endgame:
“There is still politics in the country. The Republicans did not win the governorship of Virginia because they killed democracy in Virginia. They won the governorship of Virginia because they outpoliticked the Democrats, right? We do not think the Republicans are going to do really well in the midterm elections because they’ve somehow successfully gamed and undermined the voting system in the United States.”
OK, let’s talk about the November ’21 Virginia gubernatorial race. Republican Glen Youngkin won by playing the MAGA race card. He promised to ban “critical race theory” on his first day in office (critical race theory isn’t taught in Virginia public schools), and, more generally, he said that “we don’t need to teach our children to view everything through the lens of race,” which is a cleverly Orwellian way to warn public school teachers that they should never mess with white kids’ tender sensibilities by exposing them to reality. Youngkin’s message was driven home in a campaign ad that featured a Virginia mother who tried eight years ago to remove Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved from her son’s high school curriculum after he complained that the slavery scenes gave him nightmares. (The boy, now grown up and presumably nightmare-free, worked in the Trump White House.) And Youngkin also trafficked in the “stolen election” turf, tooting dog whistles to MAGA cultists, by pledging to create an “Election Integrity Task Force” of citizens to “to ensure free and fair elections in Virginia.” (Another MAGA phantom. The state’s 2020 presidential tally was clean.)
Kahn, the new Times editor, is certainly correct that Youngkin “outpoliticked” the Democrats. But Kahn is missing the big picture: the context. The GOP’s so-called issues are all means to the GOP’s authoritarian endgame, and it would not be “partisan” for The Times to cover those issues with that context.
The mission right now is (or should be) to cover reality. Democrats, flawed as they may be, still believe in small-d democracy – whereas “the Republican side of the fence” (Kahn’s words) is infested with anti-democratic seditionists. Any journalist who’s remotely informed about what’s going on in 2022 should be compelled to point that out in plain language. If arsonists are torching a house, and it’s burning in front of your eyes, you report it and identify the arsonists. That’s not “partisan.” It’s civic duty.
Do we really need to keep warning ourselves of the consequences of cluelessness? Apparently so, because even the new guy at The Times doesn’t get it. As Jay Rosen, a media critic at New York University, keeps warning us, the mainstream press is still too invested in “the game – ‘who are the winners and losers, who’s ahead, what’s the strategy?’ You can keep doing that right up until the point when democracy disintegrates.”